The story of Neveah Gallegos, 3 years old when she died in 2007, can be tracked by the hands that touched her life, prosecutors told jurors today during impassioned opening arguments in the trial against her accused killer.

The skilled hands of a doctor delivered Neveah. The loving hands of her maternal grandmother and aunts cared for her after her mother all but abandoned her. Then there are the hands of 27-year-old Angel Ray Montoya, who prosecutors say strangled the tot and concealed her body under a pile of trash in a Denver gulch.

Montoya, who was dating Neveah’s teenage mother, had been left to babysit the child Sept. 21, 2007, the day she died, and has been charged with First Degree murder in her death. The pair staged an elaborate cover-up that sparked a days-long hunt for the child throughout Denver.

“His hands were hurtful; his hands caused pain. His hands squeezed the last breath out of her tiny little body,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Michelle Amico. “And once she was dead, he used his hands to … (dispose) of her as if she was worth nothing more than a piece of trash.”

It’s the second go-round of a Denver District Court trial that’s promised to be lengthy. Neveah’s mother Miriam Gallegos in August prompted a mistrial when she testified that Montoya had previously committed a sex offense, a bit of his criminal history the court had warned her was too prejudicial for jurors to hear.

Arguments heard today echoed openings from August.

Public Defender Sarah Welton-Mitchell said there’s no proof that Montoya abused the child and criticized the prosecution for seeking the opinion of an out-of-town expert when Denver’s medical examiner could not definitively cite Neveah’s cause of death.

“In the days before Neveah died, she was feverish. She was lethargic. She had no appetite,” Welton-Mitchell said. “It’s hard for all of us to talk about this case without emotion. When a 3 year old dies, it is a tragedy. But don’t forget it’s also a tragedy when an innocent man is accused of a horrific crime.”

An autopsy showed Neveah suffered not only bruises and scratches, but non-lethal blunt force trauma to her abdomen while in the care of Montoya and Miriam Gallegos. Prosecutors say that stomach injury, and not some mysterious malady, caused the child to feel ill just before she died.

Key to the prosecution’s case will be the testimony of Miriam Gallegos, who says she lied to police about a fake kidnapping while Montoya hid her daughter’s body.

Gallegos is serving 12 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to negligent child abuse resulting in death and avoided a more serious charge.

“You’re certainly going to deplore the actions she engaged in,” Amico told jurors. “While she may have made horrible choices, engaged in horrible conduct, she did not cause the death of her child. She failed to protect her child, but he is the one on trial here for causing the death of Neveah Gallegos.”

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